The Third Finding of the Honorable Head of John the Baptist and Forerunner in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

 

1. The honorable and holy head of John the Forerunner, which had long been hidden, has now come forth from the bosom of the earth like gold from the mines, enclosed not in a jar as before, but in a silver vessel, found in a sacred place and revealed by a priest. This head, which glorious Constantinople, the Queen of Cities, received from Comana together with the faithful emperor, her shepherd, and the faithful people, she welcomes with great rejoicing; and after all had venerated it with deep faith, they placed it in a holy place.

2. A very beautiful image of the relationship between Saint John the Forerunner and Jesus Christ, presented to us in the hymnography of today’s feast, is that of the voice in relation to the Word: “Having become the voice of the Word… O heavenly man and Forerunner” (Ode I). Saint John is thus presented, on the basis of the actual events of his life, as the one who reveals the presence of Christ, who proclaims with a mighty voice, so that all may hear, the coming of the Messiah.

May: Day 25: Teaching 3: On the Birthday of Her Imperial Majesty, the Most Pious Sovereign Empress Alexandra Feodorovna

May: Day 25: Teaching 3:
On the Birthday of Her Imperial Majesty, the Most Pious Sovereign Empress Alexandra Feodorovna
 
(How Should the Gift of Life Be Used?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Today our national Church gratefully commemorates and celebrates the birth of our Most Pious Sovereign Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and prays to the Lord that He may grant her many years in health and unchanging prosperity. The gift of life, beloved brethren, is immeasurably great for every individual person, as the gift of rational and free life, to which immortality has been promised, as a gift accompanied throughout a man’s life by countless sweet blessings from the Creator, especially in the life of a Christian. But the gift of the life of the Empress, the Mother of the Russian people, who lightens the heavy burden of rule borne by her sovereign husband the Emperor — the gift, I say, of life, precious for her, is also precious for the whole people, because her life has brought and continues to bring many blessings to the entire nation. Therefore it would be great ingratitude on our part before God and before the sacred person of the Empress not to celebrate this day with hymns of thanksgiving and praises to the Lord flowing from the grateful hearts of the great Russian people.

May: Day 25: Teaching 2: The Third Finding of the Head of the Holy Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John

 

May: Day 25: Teaching 2:
The Third Finding of the Head of the Holy Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John
 
(How Should Christians Honor the Memory of John the Baptist?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Today, brethren, we celebrate the third finding of the honorable head of the glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist of the Lord, John. Even before the birth of John it was foretold concerning him that he would be pleasing to the Lord and would be His Forerunner; that he would be a great ascetic; that he would drink no wine or strong drink; and that he would lead the strictest life of fasting. Such indeed was John the Baptist.

From his early years he settled in the wild desert of the Jordan. His food was locusts — a kind of grasshopper — and wild honey; his drink was only pure water. All who came to him he taught repentance, righteousness, love, and a God-pleasing life. Thought of God and pleasing Him was his constant occupation. Therefore the Lord glorified him, calling him an angel and saying of him that among those born of women there had not arisen anyone greater or more glorious than John the Baptist. And the Holy Church in her hymns calls him righteous, worthy of all our praise, and more honorable than all the prophets. Today, on the day of the finding of his honorable head — which had been cut off by order of King Herod and at the desire of his unlawful wife Herodias, because John rebuked their lawless life — the Church has established a feast, inviting all of us to honor his holy memory in a fitting manner.

Prologue in Sermons: May 25

 

It is a Good Thing, During Times of Absence, To Entrust our Loved Ones to the Most Holy Theotokos

May 25

(A word from the Lemonarion concerning entrusting one’s wife to the Most Holy Theotokos.)
 
By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Some pious Christians, when setting out on a long journey, entrust their loved ones to the protection and care of the Most Holy Theotokos. Do they do well in this?

There once lived in Alexandria a Christ-loving man, reverent and charitable, who received strangers and washed the feet of monks. He had a humble and fasting wife and a six-year-old daughter. Once, when he was leaving for Constantinople on business, his wife asked him: “To whom, my lord, do you entrust me and our daughter during your absence?” — “To our Lady the Theotokos,” the husband answered. Leaving one servant in the house, he departed.

During his absence, the devil inspired in that servant an evil thought: to kill his master’s wife and daughter, plunder the property, and flee with the stolen goods. Taking a knife, he went toward the room where his mistress sat doing needlework, intending to kill her. But when he approached the door, he was suddenly struck blind and could move neither forward nor backward. After suffering for a long time, searching for the entrance or the exit and finding neither, he began calling out to his mistress, shouting: “Come here!”

Holy Confessor Blandina of Iasi (+ 1971)

Blondina Gobjilă, commonly known as “Mother Blandina,” was born on February 24, 1906, in the village of Grușenți-Chelmești in Bessarabia, into a priestly family. Her father was named Zaharia Popovici, and her mother Serafima. They had two more daughters and a son, Blandina being the youngest of them all. Her name comes from the Holy Martyr Blandina, who lived in the second century in the region of present-day Lyon and was martyred in the year 177 during the persecutions of Marcus Aurelius (161–180). The meaning of the name, derived from the Latin blandus, -a, -um, meaning “gentle, comforting, pleasant, charming, inviting,” very well describes both her character and the way she related to people throughout her life, regardless of the difficulties she encountered.

She received an excellent education, both moral and intellectual. The priestly family into which she was born deeply influenced her upbringing and personality. Faith, piety, love for the holy services, respect for one’s neighbor, and self-sacrifice were virtues she cultivated from earliest childhood until the end of her life. From the age of six she attended daily the services celebrated by her father, read at the chanter’s stand, knew the order of the services, replaced the chanter when needed, and knew the Divine Liturgy by heart. She attended elementary school and gymnasium, eventually becoming a teacher for grades one through seven.

On August 27, 1926, she married Gheorghe Gobjilă, an agronomist engineer and son of a priest, with whom she had one son, Vladislav-Slavcic. From this point, Mother Blandina’s life may be divided into three periods of fifteen years each: 1926–1941 were years spent in peace and happiness with her husband and their son; 1941–1956 was the period in which she was deported to Siberia; and from 1956 until 1971, when she departed to the Lord, she lived her years of freedom in Iași, at the Metropolitan Cathedral near Saint Paraskeva.

Homily on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

Homily on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod

On Preserving the Orthodox Faith

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

“There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one!” (1 John 5:7)

Christ is Risen!

Beloved faithful,

Today, on the Seventh Sunday after Holy Pascha, the Orthodox Church celebrates the First Ecumenical Synod of the Christian world, which took place in the year 325 in the city of Nicaea, in order to condemn the heresy—that is, the false and heretical teaching—of Arius. The Synod was organized by Holy Emperor Constantine the Great together with his mother Helen, at the request of the Holy Fathers of that time, for he was the first Christian emperor in the world (306–337).

What is an Ecumenical Synod? It is the gathering of all the great Orthodox hierarchs—bishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs—from the whole world, with the purpose of discussing certain teachings of the Christian faith that had not yet been fully clarified, and establishing them in fixed and unchangeable laws called dogmas. An Ecumenical Synod also judges and condemns all deviations from the faith that are foreign to the teaching of the Holy Gospel and the Holy Fathers, and excludes from the Church—that is, anathematizes—all heretics who tear apart the unity of faith of the Church, symbolized by the seamless tunic of the Lord, woven in one piece, as the Holy Gospel says: “The tunic was without seam, woven from the top throughout” (John 19:23). By the word “synod” we mean assembly or council; by the word “heresy” we mean someone’s personal opinion or teaching about God that stands against the true teaching of the Church of Christ.

Homily Two on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of Nicaea (St. Justin Popovich)

Homily Two on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of Nicaea 

By St. Justin Popovich

(Delivered in 1967 at the Monastery of Ćelije)

Here is the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod. Why is this so? After the wondrous and unprecedented events, after the Resurrection of the Savior, after the Ascension, after Golgotha, after the whole earthly life of the Savior lasting thirty-three and a half years, the Church glorifies the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod. Why? Because the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod were, together with the Holy Apostles and after the Holy Apostles, the greatest fighters for one truth — the truth that Christ Jesus is the True God. This was their chief struggle, this was their chief battle: Christ is the True God! In this lies all their preaching, in this lies their heart, their soul, their conscience. Christ is the True God, Christ is the God-man. Behold, this is the whole truth which the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod fearlessly preached and confessed. In the beautiful hymns they are called divine warriors, warriors who fought fearlessly, fighting for the most important truths in all worlds and for the most important Person — the True God.

Homily Three for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily Three for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers 

By St. John of Kronstadt

“And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified in them” (John 17:10)

Today, beloved brothers and sisters, we have gathered together two or even four feasts: first, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and the memory of the Holy Fathers of the Nicene Synod, who confirmed the teaching about the Divinity of Jesus Christ against the heretic Arius, who blasphemed the Son of God by denying His Divinity and His eternal equality with God the Father. That already makes two feasts. The third is the feast of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, the great servant of God, and the fourth is the memory of the great Prophet Isaiah, who proclaimed the Divinity of Jesus Christ seven hundred years before His birth.

So, my brethren, there were heretics who, taught by the devil, dared to deprive people of the hope of salvation, to deprive them of the Savior, the Destroyer of death and hades, the Lord Jesus Christ, reducing Him — the Creator and God — to the level of a creature. Against these bold and senseless men, led by the Alexandrian presbyter Arius, the Equal-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine convened the Ecumenical Synod in the city of Nicaea in the year 325 after the Birth of Christ. There the blaspheming Arius was refuted, removed from the priesthood, and excommunicated from the Church of God together with his followers, and soon afterward he died a shameful death.

Prologue in Sermons: May 24

The Word of God Has a Powerful Effect Upon the Human Heart

May 24

(Repose of our Venerable Father Nikita the Stylite, Wonderworker of Pereslavl.)
 
By Archpriest Victor Guryev

The word of God has a powerful effect upon the human heart. In this we shall now try to convince you. 

 

Our Venerable Father Nikita, whose memory the Holy Church celebrates on May 24, was born and raised in the city of Pereslavl-Zalessky. From his youth he was not distinguished by piety. He was harsh, irritable, stirred up disturbances, brought many sorrows upon people, dragged them into lawsuits, and robbed them. And as he himself was, so also were his companions. Once, during Vespers, he entered a church. There he heard the following words of Scripture: “Wash yourselves and be clean; put away the evil from your souls,” and the rest. These words produced such an effect upon Nikita that he was seized with terror, and returning home, he spent the entire night sleepless, continually thinking about what he had heard. In the morning he remained in fear for a long time, and then, coming to himself, he sighed from the depths of his heart and said: “Woe is me! Greatly, greatly have I sinned!” And he went out from his house, praying and weeping. Then he came to one of the monasteries, fell at the abbot’s feet, and said: “Save a perishing soul!” The abbot gave him a penance, and for three days he stood at the monastery gates, weeping and confessing his sins to all who entered and departed. Afterwards he went completely naked into a swamp, sat among the reeds, and began praying to God. Gnats and mosquitoes swarmed about him in great clouds. When he returned to the monastery, it was impossible to recognize his body, so abundantly did blood flow from it. The abbot said to him: “My son, what have you done to yourself?” Nikita answered nothing else, but only kept saying to the abbot: “Father, save a perishing soul!” Afterwards he continued in constant prayer and fasting, spending days and nights without sleep. Then he made for himself a pillar near the church and dug a narrow passage beneath the church wall, by which he would come into the church for prayer. For such struggles he received from God the gift of working miracles. And many who were afflicted with various diseases came to him and received healing.